Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Dinner party season….
Does anyone else notice that the January to March period is a bit of a social deadzone? Every year I find myself fretting by mid-March that we just aren’t doing enough social stuff…. and I wonder if I’ve done something to offend most of our friends, or perhaps I’m just not putting myself out there enough? Premature of course, because by May our calendar is full up again and remains that way until the end of August/beginning of September (another strange social deadzone).
But perhaps that’s just us, and other people are frantically attending dinner parties and social gatherings all year round….
Anyhow – all that was just a preamble to the fact that we are going into dinner party season this year with a brand-new table that was just delivered on the weekend. Seats six comfortably and with leaves will seat 10-12! Which is endlessly exciting to me because I love to have big dinners and am tired of cobbling together two small tables in order to do so. So voila! The table with both leaves:
Of course the photo doesn’t really do it justice. Suffice to say it is a beautiful table, made with recycled wood from a torn-down buildling in Langley. Designer and builder is Al Vande and he makes other beautiful wood creations from recycled barn wood and doors as well (when we went to his shop in Chilliwack, he showed us this amazing headboard made from an old door). Best thing about going custom is that we got a table exactly to the specifications of our small (and awkward) dining room space.
Next step? Organizing some eaters to come break in the new furniture.
Spring mornings….
I’ve been working on other things, but I suppose that’s no reason for not posting here! A photograph today, some words tomorrow :
Super productive Saturday!
I am uploading the first photos for the 2011 garden season to my Flickr account, but needed to take a stop in here to gloat a little at the tremendous amount of work we got done in the garden this morning:
- irrigation system installed in all the boxes and on that side of the yard
- 3 yards of mulch received at 8 am, distributed to all the places it belongs
- March seeds planted: peas, gai lan, joi choi, sui choi, radish & mustard
- Front yard raked of debris and mulch spread on the boulevard bed
This follows on last weekend’s successful start at getting all the beds turned, a hole dug out for the bathtub in which we planted bamboo (to the left in the above picture), cleaned out all the potted things and replanted many of them, and dug in two new blueberry bushes that have been sitting in pots all winter waiting for a new home.
With all that (and in particular the irrigation system which I am very excited about) we are officially ready for spring planting now and not a moment too soon. Bring on the warmer weather!
Feeling better and going to the polls?
I’m actually feeling much better today than I have been – probably owing to a good exercise session last night, the fact that I’ve lsot four inches from my hips (and 2.5 from my waist), and that Brian and I have had a couple blessedly quiet nights alone for the first time in ages. Oh – and I’m going snowshoeing this afternoon as part of a health and wellness work activity which I’m excited about. So there crazy family drama! Not that it’s over of course, this is one of those things that will take ages to work out.
But enough about that. I suppose tomorrow the election call is going to come (non-confidence motions are expected over the budget, and that will bring the sitting minority government down) and then we will be back into choosing our leaders. Again. For the fourth time in seven years! So let’s hope that it isn’t the Conservatives again, but if it has to be, with an even smaller minority. And let’s also hope that people pay more attention to the ethics scandals than the fact that the Liberals don’t have a very dynamic leader.
(Again – for you Americans reading along – Liberal capitalized doesn’t mean the same thing as liberal does in the United States. Our Liberal Party isn’t very liberal – they are actually a centre-right party. Our centre-left federal parties are the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois who claim to be social democrats but really aren’t unless you have a really flexible definition of social democracy).
We’ll just have to see what happens tomorrow, but for all the Conservatives crowing about their poll lead – we all know that those numbers can change dramatically in an election where people really engage with the issues. I’m trying to be optimistic here – and when I go out in the world and hear what people are saying… it seems a lot of people don’t like this government any better than I do. Let’s just hope that goes to the polls in May.
International post.
I’ve been a little gift-fairy lately and handed out all sorts of stockpiled presents that were cluttering up my sewing room. Above is a potholder that made it all the way to London (UK) in less than a week. Used for last night’s dinner – my friend Maureen says that it’s near impossible to find a decent potholder in the UK because people there don’t use them. Who knew?
Whenever I enter a home where something I’ve made is in use (I do potholders as hostess and housewarming presents quite often), I feel so tickled to know that I’ve contributed in some way to my friend’s lives. And thus, this photo pleased me greatly!
Red Cedar 